Following the six days of creation, the angels rested and were refreshed on the seventh day. This became the basis of a great blessing for God’s people. While the rulers of ancient kingdoms made their people toil ceaselessly, God commanded Israel to rest from their labours each seventh day of the week and on that day to delight in worshipping him. He also commanded them to let their land rest each seventh year.
These provisions foreshadow a thousand year period during which the world will be refreshed under the benevolent rulership of the son of God, after six thousand years of human government, as the apostle wrote: “For he spake in a certain place of the seventh day on this wise, And God did rest the seventh day from all his works... There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God... Let us labour therefore to enter into that rest” Hebrews 4:4,9,11.Waiting for response for Hebrews 4:4,9,11 The first disciples looked for this time of refreshing, as Peter had exhorted them: “Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord; and he shall send Jesus Christ, which before was preached unto you” (Acts 3:19-20)Waiting for response for Acts 3:19-20
1st of 11 appearances in Genesis of "the generations of" marking the beginning of a new section. There are 12 sections, this is the second section: the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created.
Adam was initially not dying but told disobedience would bring death and when he did so he became "a dying creature". No mention is made here of mortal or immortality, discussion of which here always brings confusion because people have different definitions of these words - better to keep to the scriptures and refer to "dying" and "not dying".
There are two bodies we may possess - natural and spiritual. 1 Corinthians 15:44.Waiting for response for 1 Corinthians 15:44 We have a natural body now but have the hope of being changed into spiritual bodies of Christ's glorious nature. Philippians 3:21Waiting for response for Philippians 3:21
"The first man is of the earth, the second man is the Lord (coming) from heaven". and "As we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall bear the image of the heavenly" 1 Corinthians 15:47,49Waiting for response for 1 Corinthians 15:47,49
Adam was constituted a “living soul”: not an “immortal soul”. The scriptures are totally consistent in teaching that we are mortal and that when we die, and our breath leaves us, we return to the material elements of which we, like our first parents, are made.
Indeed, Adam himself was informed that he would die if he disobeyed God’s commandment. The original Hebrew says: “dying thou shalt die”, a process which began in Adam following his disobedience.
"Freely eat" in Hebrew is "eating eat" so Adam could eat the fruit of the trees repeatedly, but eating just once of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil would bring death.
In Hebrew "surely die" is "dying die", so Adam was told that in the day he ate of the forbidden tree he would begin dying, and eventually die, which is what happened to him. We have inherited his nature, carrying that condemnation, so we begin to die as soon as we are born. From then on, each time a cell divides, the telomeres protecting the ends of the chromosomes, gets shorter and shorter, until they get so short that the cell stops dividing and dies. This answers the charge that Adam did not die on the very day he sinned, which is suggested by the misleading translation.
"Help meet" means, "suitable helper" and none was found among the animals so God produced one out of Adam's side. This is typical, for no natural man is a suitable helper for Christ, and so a bride was developed for him out of his side.
God brought animals that he had created to Adam to see which he would "call to him". These would be companions with him (v.18)Waiting for response for Genesis 2:18 in the paradise God had made, and he gave names to those he called to him. There are different uses of the word "call" here - we can call a dog to us and we can call his name Rover, and the Hebrew text uses both meanings.
God did not take a rib from Adam - the Hebrew word is translated "side" everywhere else. Here it says, God took "out of the side" and we know that a single cell, containing Adam’s DNA, would be sufficient to produce a clone of him, and changing the Y chromosome to an X chromosome would produce a female. Clearly more than a single cell was taken from Adam for the wound had to be closed up, and we know the wonderful fact that this was typical of the creation the bride of Christ out of his wounded side and the shedding of his blood.
The creation of the first woman seems fabulous to many people, but none would deny the ability of an all-powerful God to create a woman in this way, and the scriptures tell us his perfectly good reason for doing so. Paul revealed this reason when commanding husbands to love their wives as Christ loves the church (Ephesians 5:29-32).Waiting for response for Ephesians 5:29-32 So the provision of a suitable companion for Adam expressly pointed forward to the development of suitable companions for Christ; he being the bridegroom and they, in the aggregate, his bride!
A bride will be presented to Christ, as Eve was to Adam, and the work of God now is to create "a glorious Ecclesia" as this bride, "not having spot or wrinkle, or any such thing ... holy and without blemish." Ephesians 5:27Waiting for response for Ephesians 5:27 and Song of Solomon 4:7Waiting for response for Song of Solomon 4:7
Adam recognised the affinity between himself and his bride: “This is now bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh”, as we recognise the affinity between Christ and the Ecclesia: “We are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones” Ephesians 5:29-30Waiting for response for Ephesians 5:29-30
And she was called woman, "out of man" in Hebrew using the same prefix and in "out of the side".
This declaration was made by God, not by Adam, for Christ has told us so: “He that made them in the beginning made them male and female, and said…” quoting these words. Matthew 19:4.Waiting for response for Matthew 19:4 The revelation that this scripture is speaking of Christ and his bride, the Ecclesia, is “a great secret” which we are very privileged to be privy to.
This chapter describes in more detail the creation of the first man.